I've read very mixed reviews about it, saying it's mediocre compared to Ein Mann ohne Eigenschaften, but who has the lifetime to try to read that thing?

Me! The Man Without Qualities is utterly fantastic and one of my favourite novels.

As for what I'm currently reading, I've been on a bit of a Chaucer binge: Re-reading the Parliament of Fowls (which is so lovely) and right now The Knight's Tale. He's probably underrated today due to the distance of his language (which I admittedly have some trouble scanning, particularly whether to pronounce the Es on the ends of words), which is a shame considering how fluent and musical it can be, and how witty, expansive and humane Chaucer is.

« Last Edit: November 26, 2017, 08:06:43 am by Statilius the Epicurean »

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They who have put out the people's eyes, reproach them of their blindness.

The ownerless ruin had, before World War Terminus, been tended and maintained. Here had been the suburbs of San Francisco, a short ride by monorail rapid transit; the entire peninsula had been chattered like a bird tree with life and opinions and complaints, and now the watchful owners had either died or migrated to a colony world. Mostly the former; it had been a costly war despite the valiant predictions of the Pentagon and its smug scientific vassal, the Rand Corporation--which had, in fact, existed not far from this spot. Like the apartment owners, the corporation had departed, evidently for good. No one missed it. In addition, no one today remembered why the war had come about or who, if anyone, had won. The dust which had contaminated most of the planet's surface had originated in no country, and no one, even the wartime enemy, had planned on it. First, the owls had died. At the time it had seemed almost funny, the fat, fluffy white birds lying here and there, in yards and on streets; coming out no earlier than twilight, as they had while alive, the owls escaped notice. Medieval plagues had manifested themselves in a similar way, in the form of many dead rats. This plague, however, had descended from above.

I read Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy in December and have been meaning to pick up the other two books of the "Smiley" trilogy. How you like?

I just used my Amazon Christmas money to order the following: Democracy, Charles Tilly; Social Origins of Dictatorship & Democracy, Barrington Moore, Jr.; The Devil in History: Communism, Fascism, and Some Lessons of the Twentieth Century, Vladimir Tismaneanu; The Soviet Century, Moshe Lewin; Fascism: Comparison and Definition, Stanley G. Payne

I've already read the Moore book, but the copy that my school's library has I most recently saw split in two halves, so I figured I'd better get my own copy. All of the books can, in some sense, be rationalized as feeding into my thesis work. The Tismaneanu book is the one exception; a political theory professor of mine introduced me to his work--or rather, his Amazon author's page--so I'd been meaning to read something by him for a while. As I'm not in the business at this point of comparing Nazism and Communism, I guess that would be my only specifically "pleasure" order. The rest are to be used, to some extent or another, as "background material".

I had to dump some books on Central Asia and the Transcaucasus into my "save for later" bin; I'll grab them eventually in my search for sources for my master's thesis.

I read Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy in December and have been meaning to pick up the other two books of the "Smiley" trilogy. How you like?

I just used my Amazon Christmas money to order the following: Democracy, Charles Tilly; Social Origins of Dictatorship & Democracy, Barrington Moore, Jr.; The Devil in History: Communism, Fascism, and Some Lessons of the Twentieth Century, Vladimir Tismaneanu; The Soviet Century, Moshe Lewin; Fascism: Comparison and Definition, Stanley G. Payne

I've already read the Moore book, but the copy that my school's library has I most recently saw split in two halves, so I figured I'd better get my own copy. All of the books can, in some sense, be rationalized as feeding into my thesis work. The Tismaneanu book is the one exception; a political theory professor of mine introduced me to his work--or rather, his Amazon author's page--so I'd been meaning to read something by him for a while. As I'm not in the business at this point of comparing Nazism and Communism, I guess that would be my only specifically "pleasure" order. The rest are to be used, to some extent or another, as "background material".

I had to dump some books on Central Asia and the Transcaucasus into my "save for later" bin; I'll grab them eventually in my search for sources for my master's thesis.

I enjoyed the beginning, but then I lost it.

I'm actually working on Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy now.

It's not the same exactly, but BBC's adaptations with Alec Guinness are pretty enjoyable [and a very very young Patrick Stewart as a silent cameo as Karla]. Well, at least the final part is covered

Theresa May: The Enigmatic Prime Minister by Rosa Prince. It's a bit of a May-love-fest but pretty interesting to see her rise through the Torie ranks over the decades through the eyes, and words, of the people near her.